I left the coffee shop and returned to my office where my google desktop updated the news every 15 minutes, but it never really changed. "Fed, central banks cut rates to stem meltdown." "Market slides despite rate cut." "McCain and Obama disagree on use of $700b in bailout money." And I got to thinking. What is the role of faith communities in all of this.
Part of me wants to say, "people seek out faith communities to avoid all of this. It is the job of the body of Christ to talk about kingdom oriented stuff and forget about all the sloppy stuff that happens in this world." But most of me knows that that part of me is full of it. People who are in debt up to their eyeballs need somebody to give them hope. People who have watched their 401k dwindle to half of what it was last year need somebody to give them hope. We all need somebody to give us hope. There is no way to really separate this world from the stuff of the kingdom. To say it another way, the separation of the kingdom of God from this world is how we ended up in this mess in the first place.
Dishonest lenders gave out loans to people who they knew couldn't afford them in order to make a buck. Dishonest home buyers lied on applications to buy homes they couldn't afford to keep up with the Jones'. The cycle of distrust, greed, and envy perpetuated itself to the point that subprime - a nice way of saying less than ideal - loans were given to subprime - a nice way of saying less than qualified - candidates in every income bracket of every race, color, and creed. The subprime mortgage meltdown has nothing to do with the prime interest rate, as the name might suggest, and everything to with poor decision making on the part of millions of people costing the world's economies trillions of dollars.
Tonight, I want to give us the opportunity to be creative about economics, even and especially if we have no idea how the invisible hand works or where Wall Street is located. I want us to think about economics in the context of two pieces of Scripture. The first is Genesis 1.31. It is the sixth day of Creation and God has just wrapped up making humankind, male and female, and "God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!" Contrary to the way I learned the story, God didn't look at Adam and Eve and see that they were very good, God looked at everything he had made, everything that he had spoken into existence, everything that he had just set into order - into relationship one with another - he saw those perfect relationships and saw THAT as "so good, so very good!"
If the subprime lending meltdown teaches us anything, it is that somewhere between day six and today those relationships became royally screwed up. Relationships between people and God. Relationships between people and people. Relationships between people and animals, plants, rocks. Every relationship that God looked upon and saw as so very good, has, at one point or another, been busted up, battered, and bruised.
?????So what does economics, which comes from the Greek words for the rules of the household, look like when the relationships within the household are restored to their perfect condition? Is it possible to even dream of it? Is the system so broken that we can't even fathom that "very good" sixth day?
Hold that in your mind, as we move to explore what God the Son had to say about economics. Did you know that second only to the Kingdom of God, Jesus spent most of his time talking about money? In the sixth chapter of Matthew he talks quite frankly about money, in terms that seem to have a lot to say to us in 2008. Beginning in verse 19,
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Let me be clear and say that I am not arguing against, nor do I think Jesus was arguing against, prudent financial planning. I don't think he was banning ownership of possessions. I don't think he was telling us not to "save for a rainy day" or buy life insurance policies. And as I mentioned before, I don't think he was calling us to despise the good gifts which the God of Creation has offered us.
What I do think he is banning explicitly, and I draw heavily on mission theologian John Stott for this, is "
1.the selfish accumulation of goods (do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth";
2. extravagant and luxurious living;
3. the hardheartedness which does not feel the colossal need of the world's underprivileged people;
4. the foolish fantasy that a person's life consists in the abundance of his possessions;
5. and the materialism which ties our hearts to this earth."
In the days of Jesus nothing was safe; moths ate clothing; mice ate stored grain; worms ate anything else; and thieves stole what was left. Today we can protect a lot with insecticides, mouse-traps, rustproof paints, and alarm systems, but as we know all too well we can still "lose it all" through inflation or devaluation or recession.
Our "treasure in heaven" on the other hand, is incorruptible. Practically speaking, our treasure in heaven are the things we do whose effects last for eternity. Things like: the development of a Christlike character; the increase of faith, hope, and charity; growth in the knowledge of Jesus who we will one day see face to face; the active endeavor by prayer and witness to introduce others to Christ; the constant work of restoring relationships; and the use of our money for the Kingdom of God, which is the only investment whose dividends are everlasting.
This all assumes that the kingdom of God, the restoration of all of God's created relationships, is "not some getaway vacation after our death", but it is a real possibility in the here and now. By focusing our attention on God's dream for today instead of our hope for tomorrow we become open for God to use us in the restoration work that keeps the kingdom wheels in motion. Working with God to return the systems of the world to their so very good starting point will help us avoid future crises like the one that stares us in the face today. Store up your treasure in heaven by bringing heaven to earth today.
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What are the "treasure in heaven" practices that you can do? Where do you feel God's hand leading you in the restoration of relationships? How does moving heaven from up there to down here change the way you interact with your neighbor? with God? with creation? How do we remove the tethers of materialism and instead place our treasure in heaven?
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